HowTo talk:Get a Life

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Anyone know what happened to the old version, where it makes fun of people with lives instead of making fun of nerds?

Click the "History" tab at the top, and have a look! You can view and edit (even revert to) old versions if you really want to. Be careful though... MrNFork you!22:56, Apr 2

Same asker from before here. I could not find the old version I was looking for. Was it deleted, or was there some occurance in the past (such as a server clean out or the article being marked for deletion) that might have caused this? Unless I am remembering incorrectly, I found this older version before the earliest entry in the history (June 2008), some time in 2007, possibly 2006. I am not sure, but I know it was before June 2008.

Humour:

5.4

I wanted to do this one; inherently, it's a funny idea. Look! You're a computer geek! Get out of your house and interact with someone who doesn't speak three different programming languages or have a fully developed 'Second Life' relationship!

Opening paragraph-5- One line, yet it could be so much more. The piece is a How To guide, and so it should really include an introduction - what a life is, why you should want one/why not having one makes you a l-o-s-e-r... You get the drift. Anyway

Step One and Step Two-6- Absolutely the right start, but again could be so much more. These sections (which I'd be inclined to make into a single "Step One: Getting Ready") could almost a step-by-step guide in their own right: wean off caffeine/taurine/amphetamine, wash, eat properly, make sure clothes have been washed in the last 18 months, and so on.

Step 3 Going Outside-4- I found this section disappointing actually. The 'getting dressed' bit made up too much of the section, whereas the funny bit about actually walking out is relegated to a sentence at the end. Big it up - it's funny! There's so much that could be done...

Step Four-6- It's getting there. This section does a little bit more what it says on the tin - starts to give instructions on how to actually interact with people! Again, it could be more, with it being a bit more instructional - I'd make it more of a step-by-step guide, with trial conversations, tasks to try, and so on.

Step Five-6- Similar comments to Section 4 really.

Concept:

7

It really should be funny - it's inherently a great concept. How often do we say, in jest or otherwsie, "get a life"? What do we mean? That's the joke you're trying to get at, but it's what's not quite hitting the target.

Prose and formatting:

5

This lets the article down, to be honest.

Formatting and Links

The format is OK, but it's a bit dry - apart from in one section, it's all just single paragraph sections. You've got plenty of links going on to it (possibly by luck rather than design), though the links in the article are perhaps a bit lacking. For instance, you could link "pants are important also" - it helps to make people laugh at the concepts of the article.

My other gripe is the use of italics and bold as emphasis - it's good, but it's not consistent, which just irritates.

Spelling and Grammar

Spelling is not too bad, though there's a few petty annoyances - for instance, a lack of capital letters ("family guy" is the one that immediately leaps out, but there's others).

Grammar-wise, I found it really frustrating. For guidance on quotes, see this review for a start at least.

Images:

7

The images are good, entertaining, with reasonable captions. For a longer article and a better score you'd need to have more pictures; perhaps before and after pictures are a good one, or testemonials from people who got a life.

Miscellaneous:

6.1

Averaged

Final Score:

30.5

30.5 is a very reasonable score I think. It could be brilliant; with a bit of work I'd certainly nominate it VFH. It's not brilliant yet though. I'm going to keep an eye - if I have time I might contribute to it to help because I like the premise and I'd love to see it turn into the great article it could be.

It's good, in places. Some parts of the article really work well, and some are not so great. I particularly liked the "Clothing" section. Defiantly not pants. There is a real idea behind this section. I found it interesting and entertaining to read.

The next section "Step Two: Going Outside" was nothing like as good. I found it took an awful lot of words to get over the one gag. OK, I know the subject will not like the sun, but you use far too many words to say it. Simplify this section. I think you can also suggest they experiment by first turning on the light indoors, or by looking out of the window from indoors so that they become "accustomed" to the experience, and pluck up the courage to venture into the garden.

"Step Three: Interaction" is better than step two. There is more of a concept behind this section and I enjoyed reading it more than the previous one. I still think you can greatly improve the flow of the text, use less words and make it a little less broken.

"Once you have been conditioned to go outside for an hour or more you finally ready for a social interaction. "

would maybe read better if it was:

"Once you become conditioned to fresh air, it's time to consider social iterations"

It says the same thing, but is easier to read. You need to apply this method to the whole aritcle. Did I mention that? HeHe...

"Step Four: Reintegration into Society" Was written OK, it just did not really do anything for me. I could not really find much in the way of funny in there. You need some new ideas for this section. How about you finish it with saying something about getting a girlfriend? Something like

"Once you have your own place congratulate yourself because you are now the proud owner of a life, and may even be able to begin consider getting a girlfriend. OK, no we were joking about that bit. You had better stick to your pictures of Diana Troy for the time being, or at least until you remember to wear your pants in public on a more regular basis."

Or something along those lines. My addition is not really that great but hopefully you get the idea. The article needs to have a punch line. Right now it does not, and the reader will feel disappointed.

Remember the golden rule... You should have the best most funny parts of the article at the beginning and end of the article. You need a good bit at the start to encourage the reader that it's worth their while continuing to read, and the ending needs to be awesome as it's going to be the thing which people remember the most about the article. Your ending, and this last paragraph needs a LOT of work.

Concept:

8.5

I'm giving you a very high score here. I'm doing this because I think that this article has a very solid idea behind it. If I was reviewing for someone who I thought had less potential than yourself I would probably have given 7.5. But... I know that you can turn this into something awesome. You just need to stick at it.

Prose and formatting:

7

It's generally good. It can be better. I made a few changes to one of the sections for you. I hope you can see what I was trying to do. If possible, always structure your sentences to uses as few words as possible to get your ideas across. Within reason obviously. You have to keep things in a consistent style, but remember that readers of your article will get bored if they have to read a lot of words without really getting much from them. Unlike this section of this review actually! Keep it as short and sweet as possible. I think you can probably re-work all of your paragraphs to make them a bit shorter whilst making them flow better. A great thing to do is to actually read each section out loud to yourself. I find that when I do this I spot problems which I did not notice when just reading.

I should say that I am really impressed with how much you have improved your prose so far though. When I first read this article a while back I thought that you might struggle to get it smooth and crisp enough to make it a really good read. You have however made a lot of improvements and for that... Yes I am impressed. ;-)

That list of red linked articles is not helping things and probably needs to go. As a rule, try not to have more than 1 or maybe 2 at most red links in each article you write.

Images:

6

The "Mmmmm...... tasty truth" image needs to be cropped so that it does not have all the space on the sides. That way it will not take up so much space on the page. No point having space in the box with nothing in it.

You need more pics. You just don't have enough in my book. Especially, you need a picture at the top of the article. Ideally this should be your best picture. Get yourself onto Google images or flicker or whatever and trawl around looking for some good ones. I normally scroll through the images using a few different key words until I see an image which I can think of a good caption for.

Generally I was not that impressed with the pics. They look a bit like they were added as an after thought, and you really need to find some better ones if you can. If you are seriously thinking VFH, these probably are not going to cut it. You could even consider doing an edit to a picture yourself using a photo editing tool if you have one, or maybe make a submission to UN:PIC where you might be able to find someone to make an image for you (if you ask nicely enough)...

Miscellaneous:

7.3

Averaged per {{Pee|7.5|8.5|7|6}}

Final Score:

36.3

You said that you are thinking about VFH for this article. This article is better than the "average" Uncyc article, right now, this is far from ready. It needs the prose working on, some new ideas, some new pictures and some more jokes. If you spend enough time working on this article I'm sure you can get this into a state where I would be happy to nominate it for VFH. However, and this is the warning... Please don't be too upset if when this does get nominated for VFH it does not do that well. I have poured my heart into some articles for weeks, and they failed terribly. VFH is a dam funny place. Although there is probably more consistent there than some people might think it can be a very harsh experience. Especially for new writers making there first stab at getting a feature. So, whatever happens when it is nominated (I'm sure you will put the effort in to make this good enough) don't get upset if it fails. Probably the most important piece of advice I can offer is to write for yourself, not for others. Perhaps the people who vote on a particular day don't share you sense of humour. So long as you are enjoying your writing and you keep at it, the features will come. I am sure you have the talent. It just might not be this article... With that said... Screw it!!!! You make this article FUCKING AWESOME so that those buggers over at VFH have no choice but to vote for it! Oh... It's probably best if you take some time now to edit this some more, think of some new ideas and generally improve it. When you are happy that you have made a significant improvement to this article, let me know and I will take another look at it. I will try to think of anything good which I can add in the meanwhile.